354 replies to this topic

[FloridaAnts]

I came back from school and saw a catastrophic disaster.

M. monomorium test tube flooded and they produced alates.

C. albosparsus colony #2 died from me feeding them sugar water dyed with red food colouring. It turns out that the red food colouring is dangerous to my ants. I feed colony #1 with blue food colouring and they are just fine. Both food colourings are produce by the same manufacturer so they must have added something to the red colouring that kills ants but not the blue one, I also have yellow and brown food colouring but after seeing what the red food colouring has done, I'm scared to feed them the others.

Lepisiota also has deaths from red food colouring.

What are the ingredients? Red food coloring is sometimes made from bugs…

https://www.livescie...al-carmine.html


Ghost ants everywhere, luckily no colony is killed by them but I caught them attempting to invade Cardiocondyla. And also Ghost ants (Tapinoma melanocephalum) used to be my least favourite ant species until the Pharaoh ants came. Now they are my second least favourite ants. But seriously, do wild ants have to come in my ant room every few weeks?

Oecophylla has two worker deaths.

The only good update is that Tetraponera has about 5 eggs now.

Some red food coloring is made from a scale bug, what were the ingredients?

Edited by FloridaAnts, July 1 2022 - 10:46 AM.

[SYUTEO]

 

I came back from school and saw a catastrophic disaster.

M. monomorium test tube flooded and they produced alates.

C. albosparsus colony #2 died from me feeding them sugar water dyed with red food colouring. It turns out that the red food colouring is dangerous to my ants. I feed colony #1 with blue food colouring and they are just fine. Both food colourings are produce by the same manufacturer so they must have added something to the red colouring that kills ants but not the blue one, I also have yellow and brown food colouring but after seeing what the red food colouring has done, I'm scared to feed them the others.

Lepisiota also has deaths from red food colouring.

What are the ingredients? Red food coloring is sometimes made from bugs…

https://www.livescie...al-carmine.html


Ghost ants everywhere, luckily no colony is killed by them but I caught them attempting to invade Cardiocondyla. And also Ghost ants (Tapinoma melanocephalum) used to be my least favourite ant species until the Pharaoh ants came. Now they are my second least favourite ants. But seriously, do wild ants have to come in my ant room every few weeks?

Oecophylla has two worker deaths.

The only good update is that Tetraponera has about 5 eggs now.

Some red food coloring is made from a scale bug, what were the ingredients?

 

It apparently contained erythrosine...

[SYUTEO]

Wait, I just realized yesterday marks the one year anniversary of this journal! 

 

Which also marks the one year birthday of the Anochetus colony!

 

Unfortunately the recent events are not so good. Not a very good one year anniversary to celebrate...  I should have been a better keeper.

[FloridaAnts]

Wait, I just realized yesterday marks the one year anniversary of this journal!

Which also marks the one year birthday of the Anochetus colony!

Unfortunately the recent events are not so good. Not a very good one year anniversary to celebrate... I should have been a better keeper.

Everybody makes mistakes at first. Let’s not talk about the 10 colonies I ended of (not to mention invicta) ants. (In captvity)

Edited by FloridaAnts, July 2 2022 - 4:37 PM.

[FloridaAnts]

I came back from school and saw a catastrophic disaster.
M. monomorium test tube flooded and they produced alates.
C. albosparsus colony #2 died from me feeding them sugar water dyed with red food colouring. It turns out that the red food colouring is dangerous to my ants. I feed colony #1 with blue food colouring and they are just fine. Both food colourings are produce by the same manufacturer so they must have added something to the red colouring that kills ants but not the blue one, I also have yellow and brown food colouring but after seeing what the red food colouring has done, I'm scared to feed them the others.
Lepisiota also has deaths from red food colouring.
What are the ingredients? Red food coloring is sometimes made from bugs…https://www.livescie...al-carmine.html
Ghost ants everywhere, luckily no colony is killed by them but I caught them attempting to invade Cardiocondyla. And also Ghost ants (Tapinoma melanocephalum) used to be my least favourite ant species until the Pharaoh ants came. Now they are my second least favourite ants. But seriously, do wild ants have to come in my ant room every few weeks?
Oecophylla has two worker deaths.
The only good update is that Tetraponera has about 5 eggs now.

Some red food coloring is made from a scale bug, what were the ingredients?

It apparently contained erythrosine...

Apparently high doses cause cancer in rats… I think your ants got high on erythrosine... or got cancer. Never heard of an ant getting cancer…

[ANTS_KL]

That's unfortunate. It seems Oecophylla are a pain to keep for you. For ventilation holes, I use a needle to make them.

[SYUTEO]

So, Lepisiota completely died off from erythrosine poisoning...

 

Anochetus should be recovering from the cocoon spinning problem (hopefully)

 

S. geminata should be recovering as well.

 

Tetraponera has about 7 eggs and it looks like one of them is about to hatch into larvae.

 

Oecophylla died.

[FloridaAnts]

So, Lepisiota completely died off from erythrosine poisoning...
 
Anochetus should be recovering from the cocoon spinning problem (hopefully)
 
S. geminata should be recovering as well.
 
Tetraponera has about 7 eggs and it looks like one of them is about to hatch into larvae.
 
Oecophylla died.

The weaver ants… that’s unfortunate. Hopefully you can raise another! Would really love to see an active and up-to date journal on them!

[ANTS_KL]

The weaver ants… that’s unfortunate. Hopefully you can raise another! Would really love to see an active and up-to date journal on them!

We should have one if I end up updating

[SYUTEO]

I'm back

 

Not much has happened recently, except that Anochetus has alates again and Solenopsis should be returning back to their original colony size soon.

Edited by SYUTEO, August 12 2022 - 4:17 PM.

[SYUTEO]

So you know that my ant room is just filled with wild ant activity and after many losses I decided to do some safety precautions. I lined the tables that I keep all my ants with baby powder and blocked off all the invasive ants' nest holes. And after discovering what my red food colouring does to ants I decided to use it to my advantage, except that it didn't work like how I expected.  Despite that, everything thing has been going well until now, the ghost ants managed to find a gap in my barrier and killed my beloved Gnamptogenys (Stictoponera) colony... From now on I will add more precautions and put my setups on moats. Also I don't have much luck at finding queens recently but I will try to find some. And also my turkestan roaches escaped...

[FloridaAnts]

So you know that my ant room is just filled with wild ant activity and after many losses I decided to do some safety precautions. I lined the tables that I keep all my ants with baby powder and blocked off all the invasive ants' nest holes. And after discovering what my red food colouring does to ants I decided to use it to my advantage, except that it didn't work like how I expected.  Despite that, everything thing has been going well until now, the ghost ants managed to find a gap in my barrier and killed my beloved Gnamptogenys (Stictoponera) colony... From now on I will add more precautions and put my setups on moats. Also I don't have much luck at finding queens recently but I will try to find some. And also my turkestan roaches escaped...

It sounds like you are having a bad month! I would be so paranoid if my crickets escaped(I have totally never let 5k crickets loose on accident)... well, while roaches may be a bit disguisting, crickets chirp How many escaped?

You need some ants like pyramid ants who target invasives
 

Edited by FloridaAnts, August 18 2022 - 8:02 PM.

[SYUTEO]

 

So you know that my ant room is just filled with wild ant activity and after many losses I decided to do some safety precautions. I lined the tables that I keep all my ants with baby powder and blocked off all the invasive ants' nest holes. And after discovering what my red food colouring does to ants I decided to use it to my advantage, except that it didn't work like how I expected.  Despite that, everything thing has been going well until now, the ghost ants managed to find a gap in my barrier and killed my beloved Gnamptogenys (Stictoponera) colony... From now on I will add more precautions and put my setups on moats. Also I don't have much luck at finding queens recently but I will try to find some. And also my turkestan roaches escaped...

It sounds like you are having a bad month! I would be so paranoid if my crickets escaped(I have totally never let 5k crickets loose on accident)... well, while roaches may be a bit disguisting, crickets chirp How many escaped?

You need some ants like pyramid ants who target invasives
 

 

Yeah, I have exams as well. About 10 of the roaches escaped, my roach colony isn't very big at the moment. The ghost ants even targeted the roaches as well, they can't seem to get enough of my ant room. The previous pharaoh ants have been exterminated and now ghost ants, unlike with the pharaoh ants, exterminating the ghost ants will be much harder since they don't nest like the pharaoh ants. I exterminated the pharaoh ants by wiping out their nests which are easy to find but ghost ants like to nest in more secret locations in my house.

 

There are sadly no pyramid ants here but I do have Trichomyrmex cf mayri and Monomorium monomorium who managed to fight off the previous pharaoh ants successfully, but M. monomorium has been brought down from about 500 workers to only a few dozen workers due to their test tube flooding. I also have Cardiocondyla but I don't think they are able to take them on successfully.

[SYUTEO]

I found a Crematogaster queen!

[ANTS_KL]

Yeah, I have exams as well. About 10 of the roaches escaped, my roach colony isn't very big at the moment. The ghost ants even targeted the roaches as well, they can't seem to get enough of my ant room. The previous pharaoh ants have been exterminated and now ghost ants, unlike with the pharaoh ants, exterminating the ghost ants will be much harder since they don't nest like the pharaoh ants. I exterminated the pharaoh ants by wiping out their nests which are easy to find but ghost ants like to nest in more secret locations in my house.

 

There are sadly no pyramid ants here but I do have Trichomyrmex cf mayri and Monomorium monomorium who managed to fight off the previous pharaoh ants successfully, but M. monomorium has been brought down from about 500 workers to only a few dozen workers due to their test tube flooding. I also have Cardiocondyla but I don't think they are able to take them on successfully.

 

Iridomyrmex anceps would be a good way to ward off invasive ant colonies if you have them. Usually for me, owning a decently sized colony of either Iridomyrmex anceps, Paratrechina longicornis, Pheidole parva, or Camponotus parius seems to drive invasive ants away. This is probably because of their species' dominance over my area. Basically, you just have to try keeping a species that can be seen actively competing with the Tapinoma raiders.

[SYUTEO]

Today's my birthday!  

 

Besides that, again, not much has happened. Except that Crematogaster has plenty of brood.

[SYUTEO]

Crematogaster have workers!

[ANTdrew]

Excellent!

[SYUTEO]

Hey all! So this may be the last post on this journal. I know it's very disappointing to all of you who are following this journal but I have decided to temporarily end this journal right here. The reason is because I couldn't find any new queen ants and my already existing colonies are slowly dying off. I will continue the journal if I find any new queens but it will probably be in a new topic. Here's the last update for this journal until I find new queen ants: 

 

Cardiocondyla has alates.

 

Crematogaster is doing well but their workers keep dying off for some reason.

 

Solenopsis geminata is currently still at 20-30 workers unfortunately but I plan to move them to a different setup.

[ANTS_KL]

Sad that the journal is coming to an end. If you want to find some queens, you can go to the Bukit Kiara Federal Park. There are lots of ants there that would pique your interest. For example, I found some Cataulacus, Gesomyrmex, Camponotus bedoti and a Dilobocondyla yamanei queen that I am attempting to raise. Good luck!